How Do You Pick Your Pup´s Name?

 first and foremost the dogs personality is influence. bold, shy, placid, aggressive? then maybe colour, size, structure, breed.. and then lastly i'm influenced by what ever book or movie i've read or watched that left the biggest impression on me. When i got Sparta i had recently seen 300..... he's a guardian breed, dominant, atheltic.. not to mention the lack of colouration.. very "spartan" ... Sparta just suited him.

Ben .. just looked like a Ben. he WAS named George. and in the south every other bulldog is named George. 

Kaydee was hardest to name. Her name before we got her was Petey. DH insisted she needed a name that sounded like Petey so she wouldnt get confused. rubbish! but he wont listen to me. He Was going to name her DD until i said "yeah, it stands for Dum Dog, or Dumpster Dog" - where she was found by previous owner - we met at an impass.... so we agreed on Kaydee.. but once again it seems like every bulldog in the south, if it isnt named George its named Katie..

Amber got her name because, according to a "meaning of names" website it is the Gaelic name for Fierce.. and she IS a bloody minded terrorist.

Honestly i never had help naming an animal until i got married. Now he seems to think he gets to have an opinion in the naming. and thats about all the interaction my husband will have with the animals. 

Tigger and Trigger!  LOL

I like to name a dog based on it's personality if possible.  My JRT is Twister.  It fits his personality and is a play on his "real name".  Rex was "baron" at the shelter.  We changed it to Rex because he has a sort of stately air. It's not my favorite dog name but it seems to suit him. :) Belle was just named in desperation and it's a name I've always liked.  She should wear a bell so we know what she's up to, so maybe it's not so random after all.  lol  I've named a few dogs over the years and it gets harder and harder to think of anything original.  I don't really spend too long trying to find the perfect name.  The poor dog would think it's name was "hey, you" if I took too long. 

 Honestly, the ONLY thing I didn't care about Ari's breeder, is she picked the registered AND call names.  They all had a theme (Shakespeare and I am not a fan).  The SO and I picked the one we liked the best out of the lot.  We shortned "Ariel" to Ari, b/c we liked the way it sounded better...come to find out later Ari is actually a male's name, but *shrug* no big :)  Mostly we call our dog "Miss Personality", "Wench", "Skinny butt" and "Chunky Monkey"...Oh yeah and "Disobedient Puppy".....all are used affectionately and describe aspects of Ari quite well lol (Chunky Monkey being sarcastic as she's a very skinny dog - it goes back to a comment the breeder made on one of the photos we sent where she said Ari looked overweight LMBO, it was the angle she was sitting, this dog needs to gain a pound or two!).

In the past, I've named pets (not necessarily dogs) based on personality (my cat Snuggles for instance!) or from a favorite book charector.

I echo the personality statement, and I like unusal names.

Kya was a name that a family member came up with.  I liked it, and it fit.

Chloe was supposed to be Twyla.  Her litter name was Chloe.  After several days, she would still only respond to Chloe.  So I suppose she picked her name :-D.

That said, they both have a ton of nicknames, too.  Kya is Key-Key, Pigeon, La La Beepa, etc.  Chloe is Chlo-fawna, Glowie, Needle-nose, etc.

I have some names in reserve for future puppers.  They'll only get them when the personality/dog clicks with the name, though.

Monte just looks like a Monte. It suits his Beagley-ness, imo.

Chloe reminds me of someone pretty and full of fun/spirit. Which is just what she is.

Ophira means "gold" in Greek. I think it's a beautiful name, especially for a Golden Retriever. hehe

Enzo I picked simply because I like the name and it sounds cool- he is a cool little dude after all.

 After having a dog named Maggie I resolved to always find names that other animals wouldn't have.

Oreo was my first dog; I got her when I was 10.  She was either going to be Luna or Oreo and Oreo stuck because she looked like an Oreo cookie with her big white collar on a mostly black body.

Maggie is Maggie because that was her shelter name and she'd been through so many changes we figured she didn't need another.

Ziva is hebrew for bright or brilliant and I looked it up after I saw an episode of NCIS featuring the character named Ziva who is an Israeli secret police agent.  Her registered name (for agility, she's a shelter pup) is Stardog's Can't Take the Sky after a favorite song of mine (theme song for Firefly) and I didn't like the more typical call names for a name like that, the bright or brilliant definition fits well in that aspect.

Kestrel's registered name (also for agility, also a shelter pup) is Stardog's It Happens after the Sugarland song by the same name and because his addition wasn't planned.  The name Kestrel was chosen for several reasons: it popped into my head on its own, kestrels are brown speckled birds known for their hovering ability and he's a brown speckled dog who also hovers, and "kestrel" is the word that knocked me out of my 6th grade spelling bee (which made me furious because it was an animal name and I'm an animal nerd lol).

 I have names I like that i pick up from all over and I usually pick one from there.  One thing I like to do is post in a couple of forums to generate some pretty "random" ideas, that way I can pick something different to what I would usually choose! 

But the personality of the dog is the biggest influence, and/or their story/circumstances of how they came to our home.

For example, "Dell" is actually short for "infadel", because we were living on a military base when we got her.  We went to fetch her and when we came back the chaps on the gate just smiled and cooed over the cute liddle puppy and waved us through without checking our ID or anything.  I made a flippant comment about how it was a good thing that we weren't infadels and smuggling in explosives via a cute puppy, and that was it... Infidel -->  Dell

stardog85

Her registered name (for agility, she's a shelter pup) is Stardog's Can't Take the Sky after a favorite song of mine (theme song for Firefly) and I didn't like the more typical call names for a name like that, the bright or brilliant definition fits well in that aspect.

That's cool!  I loved Firefly.  I still have the whole series on DVD.  Great intro song, too.  After you mentioned it, I caught myself singing it :-D.

 Tootsie, had a great-great aunt named Tootsie. Also shes long like a Tootsie roll and shes adorable.

I tend to like call names that end in "y" and when we got Billy his "shelter name" was Huggins.  We had intended to do pet therapy with him, and you do NOT encourage people to hug the stuffing out of your dog *sigh*.  Besides -- his foster situation was NOT happy, so I'm glad we changed it.

We are both JRR Tolkein fans ... and I'd wanted something from LOTR, but I'd already had a "Pippin" and "Merry is too 'girly' in the States.  One of my own nicknames is 'Sam' so that was out too.  Frodo ... he just was NOT a Frodo.  But about his 5th day here, David went out to get him from the back yard and found Billy on the TOP of a set of 6 foot shelves & how he got up there is a huge guess -- there was no ladder -- it was a total mystery!!

So David came in and said "Well, this one is quite an adventurer!!  And we looked at each other and said in unison "BILBO!!!"

So most folks don't know that Billy the Adventurer really IS Bilbo the Adventurer, but he does come to both names. 

Luna was Lunabella before she came here (and I think it's the dumbest name on the planet for a hound) -- but since Lunatic, LunaTuna, and Looney-Tunes ALL fit her, Luna it stayed.

Kee Shu was probably "Kisshu" -- and I just didn't want my husband having to yell "KISS YOU!!!!" out the back door ... so "Kee Shu" seemed easy and it was easy enough for her to transition.

Tinkerbell was "LuLu" before ... but my tongue got tangled the first time I tried to say Luna and Lulu in the same sentence. 

As we were driving back from Texas with her trying to get to know her personality every morning when we'd leave the motel and David would pack the car ... the dog would get COMPLETELY ticked off because David would take all our stuff out to the car and she was convinced she was going to get LEFT. 

But for all the world she looked like Tinkerbell when she was out of sorts with Peter Pan (because he was spending too much time with that WENDY person!!! *hufff*) and the last morning when we got in the car and she was still sulking a big I said "You little stinker ... you'd better quit looking like you're sulking like Tinkerbell or I'm gonna CALL you that!!"

My husband (who had heard this for two consecutive mornings) said "Oh it FITS -- quit threatening and let's just call her that!!"

And it does ... I think Billy and Tinkerbell are the two most completely appropriately named dogs I've ever had!!

But I tell ay -- keeping the fairy dust cleaned up is no small task!! LOL

 Emma was named, before I got her. She's my Emma Nems. Emma means "all embracing". She's not. Not even a little bit. I love the name, though, and Emma she is.

Ena was named by her breeder. The reason is ugly, so I won't repeat it, here. She more commonly goes by the nickname "Bean", or "Monkey", or an initial. Both dogs respond to letters, LOL. "M", "E", and "EB!".

Their registered names match. Emma is Mischeif N Miracles. That was decided, when she was 3 years old. It's MNMs, and well.... it suits her better than anything else. Ena is Monkey N The Middle. She's a monkey dog, indeed. Together, they respond to "Sillies". Seriously. "Sillies, sit!" and they sit.

I base it on personality. Cricket got hers because she was calm and lucky Crickets are suppose to be lucky. Angel came with her name and it stuck I couldn't think of a better one.

Mr. Misha's original "full" name was Misha ma Belle, because his mother's name was Beautiful and his father's name is Ringo. The only Beatles song I could think of involving Beautiful in the title was Michelle ma Bell. Too many "M" names in my family though, Michelle, Micheal, Melissa, McKenzie, but since the names all sounded the same, and because I couldn't name a dog after myself, I looked for derivatives in other languages. His name was picked out before him, though I knew that if he didn't fit the name I could change it. Misha is a perfectly acceptable name for him, though I did have to change it to Mister Misha, so people would stop asking if he was a boy.

I also named Axel (my aunt and her boyfriend's dog) and one of their other puppies. The other puppy I named Molly (though it got changed to Maggie) because she was a pit bull. And for some reason, thinking about it, I reasoned that pit bulls were "devil dogs" -- Teufelhunden. Dave, my aunt's boyfriend, is a former Marine, and the statue dedicated to female Marines is called "Molly Marine". Axel had a couple of other suggestions floating around, as Dave originally wanted something that went with the Nordic theme of his previous Apollo. But at the same time that dog food commercial with the Axel puppy was floating around. I think he was secretly named for Axl Rose, at least... that's how I would have spelled it.

My Rottie who is now at the bridge, he was named Thor before I got him( I thought it was a terrible name).  I named him Kane after Kane Roberts who played guitar with Alice Cooper.  Kane was a bodybuilder who played guitar with long black hair.  So sorta crazy but the name suited him.

Harley my Shih Tzu came with the name and was a rescue. I really didn't feel like changing his name when he had been at a several places before me. I call him Harley Ito or Ito depends on the day.